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A review of social commitment in 20th century art and its commodification under Capitalism

By Zahra Abdi

Introduction
At the start of the 20th century, the impact of war, economic crises, colonial competition, and skepticism about progress led many artists to move away from content-driven art and embrace formalism, sparking the rise of modern art. By the 1920s, however, avant-garde artists renewed their interest in socially engaged art, which is essential in addressing the era’s socio-political challenges (Scheunemann, 2005; Clark, 1997). In the 1920s and 1930s, artists addressed issues like poverty, housing, war, executions, and workers’ strikes. However, as the economy improved and the art market grew, the question of art’s autonomy led to a divide between art and life (Roberts, 2014). Modern art, with its formalist focus, dominated the art world until the postmodern era. In postmodernism, art shifted back to social discourse. After 1960 in France, a rebellion against consumerism sparked critical art, and by the 1980s, figurative painting became a platform for addressing social issues. Social movements, feminism, and themes of gender, race, and identity then became central to cultural studies and artistic works (Smythe, 2015).


This research aims to answer the key question of how the discourse of socially committed art evolved within Western art during the 20th century, shaped by historical developments. It also seeks how this art is commodified in a capitalist society. The objective of this research is to examine how socially committed art—as a tool for resistance and social critique—has evolved in its expression and purpose, and to analyze how capitalist systems transform this critical art into consumable products, often stripping away its oppositional potential. To address this, the research adopts a descriptive-analytical method, beginning with a review of the trajectory of socially committed art during two first decades of the 20th century, extending through the rest of the century and into postmodernism, then applying Theodor Adorno and Horkheimer’s theory of the Culture Industry to explore how capitalism affects art and culture.


Socially committed art in the first two decades of the 20th century
To fully grasp 20th-century art and the development of modernism, it is essential to contextualize them within the broader political, social, and technological changes of the time1 (Berlin, 1997). At the beginning of the century, many Europeans and Americans were imbued with an optimistic belief in societal progress, driven by the expansion of democracy, capitalism, innovation, and technology (Marx & Mazlish, 1996). However, the competitive nature of colonialism and capitalism introduced deep instability within Europe and its political allies, ultimately leading to widespread skepticism regarding the notion of progress. The concept of progress posits that history unfolds as a continuous process of improvement, with all societies contributing to a collective evolutionary trajectory. According to this framework, if one perceives history as a definitive path toward advancement, Western civilization becomes positioned as the apex of this developmental pathway (Castoriadis & Murphy, 1985). Hegel, in his metaphysical narrative, proposed that the driving force of history lies in the birth and evolution of ideological maturity. He argued that this ideological shift occurs when a new idea emerges within the confines of an established one, eventually superseding it. In his philosophy of history, Hegel maintained that any reflective individual analyzing historical events must accept that suffering is an integral part of progress, thus embedding the concept of colonialism within the broader framework of historical advancement (McLangy, 2024).


In the latter half of the 19th century, the notion of an organic society diminished, and conflict came to be seen as the foundation of life in industrialized Western society. This view was reflected by Marx and Engels in the early Communist Manifesto, which can be seen as a seminal modernist statement advocating a radical break from the past. Modernist writers and artists were influenced by this perspective, striving to depict the alienation of urban life. The shift toward abstraction in avant-garde art is also interpreted as a reflection of this social alienation2 (Childs, 2017). The incorporation of Marxist ideas into 20th-century art, prior to the Russian Revolution, led to the creation of movements like Futurism and Constructivism, where machine played a central role. This often led to the development of abstract expressions. These artists created a significant break from traditional art forms, embracing avant-garde techniques to merge industry and production with art. By defamiliarizing common processes, they aimed to elevate critical cultural awareness (Versari, 2009). In addition to philosophical influences, the rise of avant-garde art movements was closely tied to the events surrounding World War I (Cárcel, 2023). The outbreak of the war in 1914 drastically altered global dynamics. Prior to the conflict, collaboration among European artists was widely accepted, but the war’s onset and divergent views on it caused these relationships to collapse, ushering in a new phase of European art. During this period, many artists, either voluntarily or due to obligation, joined the front lines, with some subsequently glorifying war while others strongly opposed it (Becker, 2020). It seems that the glorification of war by avant-garde artists stemmed more from their anti-bourgeois stance than from any commitment to patriotism. This avant-garde viewpoint aimed to destruction of all systems influenced by the bourgeoisie. Among European avant-garde groups, the Italian Futurists, led by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, were the most captivated by war (Storchi, 2015).

The first Futurist manifesto, issued by Marinetti in 1908, declared that only by becoming free of the stinking gangrene of… “professors, archaeologists, touring guides, and antique dealers” only by burning libraries and flooding museums, could Italy save itself. The new world of speed and technology required a new language of forms derived not from the past but from the future. A second manifesto declared that by denying its past could art correspond to the intellectual needs of our time. Tradition was reactionary, Modernism alone was revolutionary and progressive (Gablik, 2004).


These artists displayed a fragmented chaos that represented the 20th century—a century that was increasingly and technologically undergoing transformation (Salter, 2010). For the Futurists, war was viewed as an inspiring, progressive, and even beautiful phenomenon. However, this fascination was not universally shared among artists; for some, enthusiasm was replaced by profound hatred. In France, André Breton, who would later lead the Surrealist movement, expressed his reluctance toward the glorification of war, while artists such as Marcel Duchamp distanced themselves by leaving their homeland (Re, 2004). By mid-1915, the violence, suffering, and perceived futility of the war compelled many pro-war artists to reevaluate their positions. They sought to use their art to denounce and critique the war. In post-World War I Europe, the anxiety stemming from the conflict prompted some artists to memorialize the victims, not to celebrate military heroism, but to condemn the political underpinnings of war and the prevailing culture of forgetting (Cork, 1995).


Amid World War I (1916), the Dada movement emerged with its revolutionary critique of war and bourgeois society, followed by Surrealism in 1924, which embraced an anti-war stance (Rubin, 1968). By the 1920s, the postwar generation of Dadaists had grown increasingly skeptical of society’s mercenary nature. The catastrophic consequences of the war had shattered any remaining faith in a rational and peaceful future. In their view, a civilization that tolerated such atrocities was unworthy of art’s consolations, having lost its legitimacy. Consequently, the public was confronted with meaningless, aggressively absurd object (Gablik, 2004). Avant-garde modernism emerged as an artistic movement protesting the existing social order while seeking individual freedom. The war’s catastrophic effects shattered faith in progress and disillusioned artists with past ideologies, leading them to embrace absurdity. Dadaist and Surrealist artists aimed to dismantle established patterns, yet the disharmony and fragmentation of their works mirrored individuals’ loss of control and societal harmony (Childs, 2017). This loss of centrality once again led artists to reconsider the relationship between art and society from a new perspective.


Socially committed art from 1920 to postmodernism
In the late 19th century and early 20th century, the presence of humans, either as a source of evil or as an oppressed and threatened identity, became increasingly prominent in artworks3 (Wosk, 1986).

Even though the social thought and function of art around the 1880s gradually gave way to a phase of avant-gardism, which remained influential until about 19204, but during that period, the intensification of art’s autonomy through the aesthetic movement facilitated the avant-garde’s recognition of the inherent lack of social impact in autonomous art. As a logical consequence, there emerged a concerted effort to reintegrate art into the domain of social action. The fundamental transformation that arose from the transition from aestheticism to the avant-garde movement was rooted in art’s awareness of its role within bourgeois society—or, more precisely, its comprehension of its own social standing. Avant-garde artists believed that the integration of art into life was possible, provided they created unfinished works that remained open to audience reactions. This approach began its activities in 1920s5, when streets replaced galleries as venues for artistic expression, emphasizing the connection between life and art more than ever before (Burger, 1984). Alongside radical movements, the resurgence of realism in post-war European painting cannot be overlooked. The psychological impact of the war fostered a revival of realism, as artists, driven by a heightened sense of responsibility, became more attuned to their social and human obligations, seeking to contribute to the betterment of society (Lucie-Smith, 2020).


The formation of social realism in the 1920s and 1930s was inspired by the belief that art could serve as a weapon to combat the exploitation of workers under capitalism and halt the rise of international fascism (Whitfield, 2022). The painful experience of war drove German artists such as Max Beckmann and Käthe Kollwitz to create works with themes of war, suffering, and grief. However, while Kollwitz’s work can be considered part of social realism, Max Beckmann is associated with Neue Sachlichkeit. The ‘New Objectivity’ movement, which emerged in the 1920s, was an artistic response to the war and the political and social upheaval of the Weimar Republic, often characterized by a critical, detached, and sometimes satirical portrayal of contemporary life and politics in Germany (Pound, 2018). In addition to European art, American art during this period exemplified the return of art to social action. The Harlem Renaissance, which unfolded between the end of World War I and the mid-1930s, marked significant cultural, social, and artistic transformations in Harlem. Although initially driven by a literary movement led by writers and poets, this period gradually attracted artists, photographers, and musicians, establishing Harlem as a cultural hub. The Harlem Renaissance revitalized Black pride and contributed to changing perceptions of African Americans and their roles within the cultural framework of the United States (Stephens, 2006). According to Art Hazelwood, citing Gorky6, despite the significant socio-political movement in the art world, the powerful political art of the 1930s was sidelined. During this time, elitism reemerged with the economic recovery and the decline of the Great Depression. Many curators, gallery owners, and artists participated in this pronounced shift away from political art, which had previously symbolized solidarity among artists in the 1930s. Economic improvement, evolving artistic practices, the revitalized commercial art market, fatigue from political engagement, and a sense of futility surrounding political art were all noted as reasons for the decline of political art (Hazelwood, 2017).


The return of art to social commitment: Postmodernism
Postmodernism presents both opportunities for the resurgence and expansion of cultural politics and the risk of its neutralization. A significant focus of postmodern aesthetic theory is the rejection of the modernist distinction between art and other social activities. It seeks to reclaim the suppressed political dimensions inherent in aesthetic and cultural practices. As culture permeates all areas of life, there is a growing aestheticization of social, political, and economic spheres (Connor , 1989). The resurgence of political and social consciousness, along with the re-engagement of art in political discourse, was most prominently visible in France. In 1960s France, a rebellion against consumerist society emerged at a time when art was often seen merely as entertainment. This upheaval provided a renewed platform for critical art. Although abstract painting dominated the artistic landscape and gained significant traction in educational institutions, the resistance to mainstream art forms led artists to incorporate everyday objects, including discarded materials, into their work. This shift positioned them as commentators on social movements, reflecting broader critiques of contemporary culture (Foster, et al., 2005).


With the ongoing production of socially themed artworks, a new vitality emerged in painting from the early 1980s. This revival followed the marked isolation and unprecedented withdrawal that the medium had experienced during the 1960s and 1970s in response to innovative experiments beyond the traditional canvas framework. Notably, this renewed energy in painting was expressed not through abstraction, but primarily through figurative art (Cork, 2002). During this period, it is noteworthy that Marxist and socialist interpretations of art, which gained significant influence after World War I, contributed to the emergence of a movement known as the social history of art by the mid-20th century. This movement emphasized the reciprocal relationship between society and art. Over time, Marxist art history evolved into social art history, integrating with competing methodologies such as feminism, psychoanalysis, and studies of gender and race. This shift resulted in a diverse and interdisciplinary body of work, often referred to as “modern art history. Simultaneously, approaches associated with “cultural studies” increasingly gained prominence within the realm of sociological art studies (Doy, 1998). Alongside the expansion of social art studies, a wave of global artistic events emerged, spotlighting artists of diverse nationalities, ethnicities, and cultures who had been overlooked for years. Moreover, the rise of multiculturalism coincided with the end of the Cold War, exemplified by two exhibitions that challenged the institutional dominance of white artists in Paris and London (Stallabrass , 2006).


One of these two exhibitions was “Magicians of the Earth7” at the Georges Pompidou Center. This event was pivotal in decentralizing the main cultural and artistic hubs of the world and distributing art across international centers. Selecting half of the works from Asian and African countries, aimed to present a more global discourse on art, integrating local characteristics while fostering dialogue within a broader international context. During this time, new artistic movements with social objectives emerged. Conceptual and thematic art, which gained prominence in the late 20th century, transformed aesthetic perceptions and accompanied art with a form of aggressive ethics. However, the radical advancement of new artistic expressions faced significant resistance both within and beyond the art world, prompting many artists to redefine art in a figurative space. During this period, there was a widespread effort to address social issues, focusing on inequalities related to class, race, gender, and ethnicity, especially for those facing discrimination, violence, exploitation, or invisibility. What was once a marginal issue in the modern era became central in postmodernism. The emphasis shifted towards exposing both overt and hidden forms of discrimination, reshaping social images becoming a dominant approach in contemporary art.


Commodification of socially committed art
Adorno and Horkheimer’s theory of the Culture Industry indicates how cultural products, initially created for expression and intellectual development, are commodified and mass-produced for capitalist markets (Horkheimer & Adorno, 2012). Culture and capitalism have been deeply intertwined since the Industrial Revolution, leading to the separation of culture from everyday life. This separation resulted in an undemocratic culture, where art and culture became commodities (Childs, 2017). Commodification refers to the process through which symbolic forms—cultural products with significant intellectual, aesthetic, or emotional content—are produced, distributed, and consumed as commodities within capitalist systems (Scott, 2011). These products, which may serve as tools for entertainment, communication, or social positioning, are transformed into goods for profit within market exchanges which is one of the main concerns of culture industry theory (Scott, 2011; Horkheimer & Adorno, 2012). In the context of art, commodification refers to the process by which creativity, or any form of expression is transformed into a marketable product, valued primarily for its potential to generate profit, rather than for its intrinsic or affective qualities (Anonymous, 2017). The profit derived from exclusive control over unique, non-replicable resources—such as a work of art— is referred to as monopoly rent, which can extract value from it by capitalizing on its uniqueness as discussed by Harvey (2001). Capitalism seeks to appropriate local differences, cultural variations, and aesthetic meanings to generate monopoly rents leading to the commodification of cultural products, often at the expense of their original authenticity and political meaning. Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno argue that art has the power to disrupt capitalist ideologies as it serves as a bearer of truth by revealing hidden social and historical truths often obscured by dominant power structures. However, they stress that art’s autonomy—its ability to remain independent of market or political pressures—is fragile. Autonomous art retains its critical edge, but when absorbed by the creative industries and commodified, it risks losing this independence and its capacity for critique (Lijster, 2017). Art can also criticize capitalism and its effects, offering a platform for resistance. Malik (2008) argues that the art market uses critique as a moral justification to appear distinct from overtly commercial practices, yet both primary and secondary markets ultimately reinforce capitalist accumulation. The values of “artist critique”—creativity, autonomy, and resistance to commodification—have been co-opted by neoliberal management. These values, once used to challenge capitalism, are now integrated into its operations, making critique part of the system and weakening its oppositional power (Chiapello, 2004).


The paradox of socially committed art lies in the fact that, while it seeks to challenge and critique the very systems of oppression and commodification inherent in capitalism, it is not immune to the forces of commodification itself. Activist art, a form of socially and politically engaged art that aims to provoke change by raising awareness about injustices, encouraging dialogue, and mobilizing communities for social action (Gupta, 2021; Himada, 2014), is the prime example of this contradiction. This form of art transcends mere aesthetic appeal, using emotion (affect) and strategy (effect) to foster a deeper understanding of systemic issues and catalyze social transformation (Gupta, 2021; Sholette, 1998). Although activist art challenge societal norms, criticize power structures, and address issues such as racism, gender inequality, environmental degradation, and human rights violations (Hackney, 2016), yet, like much creative productions, it often finds itself co-opted by the same market forces it critiques. As Lippard (1984) notes activist art can act as a Trojan horse, appearing within the structures of the art world but containing subversive messages aimed at disrupting power structures. However, when this form of art is commodified, its critical edge can be dulled, turning a tool for resistance into a marketable product for public consumption. The commodification of art, especially within the context of public spaces or cultural institutions, raises questions about the authenticity of its message and the ability of such works to maintain their political impact. Street art as a type of activist art, once a form of urban resistance and critique, has also been co-opted into the very capitalist frameworks. This transformation of public art into a tool for urban branding reflects the idea of co-optation in a broader trend of “creative city” paradigms (Pavoni, 2019), where this aesthetics are incorporated into mainstream advertising, tourist attraction, and increasing property values. What began as a form of cultural opposition to the urban decay and marginalization has been turned into a commercial product that facilitates gentrification processes while maintaining structural inequalities by excluding residents from decision-making and alienating them(Raposo, 2023; Ian Ross, et al., 2020).


On the other hand, the sense of alienation felt by people or communities in this system, resulting from commodification, can lead to resentment and opposition toward the capitalist system. This aligns with Adorno’s concept of negative dialectics, where alienation creates the possibility for resistance, even within systems of oppression (Sherman, 2016). Besides, considering capitalism needs cultural differences and their uniqueness to generate monopoly rents and maintain the illusion of authenticity, this can create openings for resistance. Alternative forms of cultural production and political organization are another form of resistance to commodification. Socialist movements and other radical political forces can use culture as a tool for opposition, reclaiming creativity and authenticity from capitalist exploitation. By focusing on collective empowerment and redirecting cultural production toward social and communal values rather than profit, these movements can challenge the dominance of capitalism while preserving cultural uniqueness (Harvey, 2001). Serafini believes community-centered art practices as resistance for this commodification. She draws on Herbert Read’s essay “To Hell with Culture” (1941), where Read critiques how capitalist systems commodify art and hinder the democratization of culture. She argues by engaging people in radical politics and social change rather than institutions through community centered art we can maintain art’s autonomy and preserve its critical potential outside the constraints of institutionalization and market pressures (Serafini, 2015). Adorno’s concept of autonomy in art, which emphasizes its separation from market logic, can be also seen here as another model for preserving the integrity of socially committed art. Read advocates for a radical shift towards a democratic model of cultural production. He argues that under capitalism, art is produced primarily for profit, leading to an elitist and undemocratic culture that is disconnected from the everyday lives of people. To counter this, it should be a system where all production is for use, not for profit, with an emphasis on function and fulfillment as the defining qualities of art, rather than its marketability. He calls for the collective ownership and control of the means of production, including artistic industries, ensuring that cultural output serves the common good rather than capitalist interests. Furthermore, Read envisions a society where art is fully integrated into everyday life, breaking down the separation between culture and work that was caused by the Industrial Revolution. In this model, artists are no longer isolated as unique geniuses but are part of a collective workforce, contributing to the democratic and functional culture that serves society as a whole (Child, 2015).


In conclusion, the commodification of socially committed art under capitalism poses a paradox: while this art form seeks to challenge and critique oppressive systems, it often becomes absorbed into the very market forces it opposes. As critical art is transformed into consumable products, its oppositional potential is frequently diluted, turning acts of resistance into marketable commodities. However, opportunities for resistance remain, as artists and communities continue to explore alternative models of cultural production that preserve the integrity of socially engaged art and challenge its commodification within capitalist frameworks.

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Footnotes

  1. In his article The Pursuit of the Ideal, Berlin identifies two significant factors in shaping the history of humanity in the 20th century: the active influence of science and technology, and the profound ideological upheavals that emerged. Events such as the Russian Revolution and its aftermath, totalitarian regimes (both left and right), surges of nationalism, racism, religious fanaticism, etc (Berlin, 2018) ↩︎
  2. Lynton describes modern art as if “there was no design, no composition, and no way for the viewer to know what to admire, let alone what to think about. It seemingly lacked any content (Lynton, 1980). ↩︎
  3. At the end of the 19th century, in the works of artists such as James Ensor (1860–1949), Edvard Munch (1863–1944), and Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901), there was no longer any trace of the tranquility and brightness found in classical works or the vibrancy of life depicted in realism. Instead, there are faces of distorted humanity, beings devoid of identity, and purely anguished visages; these faces symbolize the sickly and pessimistic spirit of suffering and corrupted humanity. ↩︎
  4. The avant-garde timeline should extend back to the 1830s, tracing its roots to l’art pour l’art. This shift highlights that the avant-garde was not only a rejection but also a continuation of l’art pour l’art (Singsen, 2020). ↩︎
  5. It is also known as radical avant-garde (GAIE, 2021). ↩︎
  6. Arshile Gorky, poor art for poor people ↩︎
  7. Magiciens de la Terre, a contemporary art exhibit from 18 May to 14 August 1989. ↩︎

The Sound of Resistance: How Music and Acoustemology Can Amplify the Impact of Student Protests

By R.L. Benjamins · S. Gahramanlı · M.M. Ho · K. Perjési · S.G. Pol

Following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, James Brown’s Say It Outloud (I’m Black and I’m Proud) became a hit. Peter Gabriel’s Biko brought the story of Steve Biko (an anti-apartheid activist from South Africa) to millions in the West. Shervin Hajipour’s Baraye became the song of Iranian women’s struggle against the Iranian regime. These are three examples of instances in which music brought communities together and delivered unnoticed stories to millions. As Rosenthal explains in his work, Playing for Change: Music and Musicians in the Service of Social Movements, “songs are democratic” since almost anyone can create a melody and songs are uniquely portable. He explains that we carry a database of songs associated with memories and emotions. It is hard to say the same thing for other art forms. While not everyone is a fervent reader, and not everyone might like paintings, everybody engages with music in one way or another.

Listening to music is arguably the most accessible form of engaging with art, more accessible than reading. Thus, it is no wonder that social movements end up adopting songs. Music defies language barriers and resonates with diverse audiences, allowing people on one side of the world to sympathise with the struggles of those in other parts of the world. With the help of music, emotions behind the motives of a social movement become apparent, and the message is delivered in a more accessible format. Moreover, the integration of music into social movements serves branding purposes. Once a song becomes associated with a purpose, people will reminisce about this movement once this song plays. For instance, in the Netherlands, student protests usually involve loud music and chanting to disrupt the peace in public spaces and express their message in this way. However, with acoustemology and a planned form of the use of music, the goals of student protests may be more effectively realised. By employing the language of music as a tool, these protests can achieve a more significant following and appeal to more people. In light of the recent protests against budget cuts in higher education, we want to explain why.

A way to look at this is through acoustemology, a term created by anthropologist Steven Feld, which combines “acoustics” (the study of sound) with “epistemology” (the study of knowledge). This concept suggests that sound is more than just something we hear; it’s a powerful way to “know” and experience the world. Feld’s work, particularly with the Kaluli people of Papua New Guinea, showed that sounds held deep meanings for them. Bird calls, for example, were thought of as the voices of ancestors, weaving family, memory, and identity directly into the environment. In this way, sounds became a way to feel connected to both place and community, making sound a way of understanding the world.

In the context of protests, acoustemology offers a unique lens to understand how sounds—such as chants, music, and even the rhythm of footsteps—shape the atmosphere, participation, and overall purpose of an event. In protests, sound is a powerful tool to forge unity, assert identity, and build a sense of presence and solidarity. For instance, when groups chant, sing, or clap in rhythm, they express themselves individually and create a collective voice. This shared sonic environment amplifies the protest’s impact, making it feel more substantial, unified, and bold than if participants were to stand in silence.

The three critical components of acoustemology that we can actively examine for its insights and effectiveness are the space, the participants, where the protest activities occur, and the sounds generated during them. The usage of spaces can depend on a specific meaning held by that place concerning the protest, allow sounds to amplify better, or allow participants to interact with it.

A recent study by Hei Ting Wong on the acoustemology of Hong Kong in protest highlights how specific sounds can evoke shared histories and cultural understanding within the same cultural system. In Wong’s analysis, she suggests that understanding protestors’ demographics and cultural backgrounds can help identify which sounds will resonate most effectively. The sounds within a protest’s acoustemology carry significance, regardless of individual preferences, because they are accessible, circulated, and—most importantly—widely understood within that context. According to Wong, sound can reveal an “unseen space” of human experience, offering an alternative way to experience and interpret spaces. Acoustemology thus helps us explore how sound can alter or even challenge spatial order. It allows us to see how spaces are reclaimed through music and sound and how these elements establish meaningful connections between people and the space around them.

By focusing on the interaction between sound, space, and participants, acoustemology enables us to analyse protests through their soundscapes—the collection of sounds in places. This approach reveals how different sounds—chants, drums, or intentional silences—transform a location into a symbolic space of resistance. For example, in Hong Kong’s Anti-Extradition Law protests, the song “Glory to Hong Kong” was sung in public places, turning everyday spaces like shopping malls into sites of solidarity and defiance. As this song filled public squares, transportation hubs, and streets, these spaces became part of the movement, resonating with participants’ shared purpose and identity.

Using acoustemology to study student protests, we gain insight into how sound creates a sense of belonging and presence. For example, a protest where students chant in unison strengthens the participants’ understanding of unity and communicates a message to anyone listening. This effect can draw in bystanders, attract media attention, and make the message of the protest resonate more deeply with people who might not otherwise engage. In this way, sounds create a ripple effect, where those who hear it feel connected to the movement, even if they aren’t physically present. By carefully selecting sounds representing their goals or emotions, protesters can create a more memorable and impactful event. This makes acoustemology a valuable framework for understanding and enhancing the effectiveness of protests.

Drawing on Bill Osgerby’s subcultural theory, which suggests that music shapes group identity and reclaims spaces for marginalised voices, music can help protesters, including students and faculty of higher education, turn familiar spaces—streets, squares, and university entrances—into resonant sites of protest. By choosing acoustically favourable areas that carry sound further, students can create high-impact moments where chants and music take on a new, amplified quality. This performative reclaiming of public space isn’t just about volume; it’s about turning these spaces into meaningful places of solidarity.

Acoustemology can also be used to recognise the impact of music and sounds on the people participating. Analysing acoustemology can give us more insight into the practical relationship of sound and music with society. This is what Christian Spencer-Espinosa describes in Music and Social Change: Reflections on the Relationship between Sound and Society. He believes that because of music, a shared value and participative ethos can be communicated, and every individual’s contribution is part of the performance’s success. Therefore, understanding the participatory aspect of acoustemology is crucial for a protest or political movement to succeed. Acoustemology sees sounds as obtaining knowledge. It conveys a form of knowledge that leans toward a particular way of living, its embodied nature offering a powerful tool for increasing protest impact by shaping participants’ collective identity.

Music as a performance can invigorate a protest, making it feel dynamic and alive, capturing the attention of participants and onlookers alike. Coordinated chants, live music, and rhythmic elements like clapping and drumming transform the protest into an immersive experience that feels like a collective act of resistance. As Spencer-Espinosa explains, music naturally fosters inclusivity, allowing each individual to contribute equally, which is essential for building a unified front. Students can use synchronised chants and rhythms at the education funds protest in Utrecht to create a cohesive, powerful sound that embodies their shared stance against funding cuts. This collective sonic identity does more than amplify the protest’s message – it visually and audibly conveys solidarity, creating a powerful display that engages bystanders and draws them into the movement. When a crowd unites in rhythm, their message of solidarity becomes nearly impossible to ignore, sending a clear, resounding call for change.

In addition to this collective experience, the creative process of crafting music for the protest brings a DIY spirit that enhances a sense of ownership and individual expression within the movement. By encouraging students to contribute to chants, rhythms, or even anthems, the protest takes on a collaborative, grassroots quality where every participant’s input shapes the unique soundscape. Using accessible instruments like drums, tambourines, or even everyday objects, participants can join in without needing formal musical training. This DIY approach empowers students to contribute to the protest’s auditory identity actively, turning their voices and sounds into a communal force that is distinct, organic, and memorable. Together, these elements—the shared experience of rhythm and the personalised DIY contributions—create an inclusive, resonant protest environment, reinforcing the students’ unified call for accessible, well-funded education.

Rosenthal explains that songs are unique in how they attach to our memories and emotions, becoming almost like mental shortcuts that instantly bring back specific feelings or experiences when we hear them. Taking this, we can argue that a big speech might not be the most effective method in reminiscing a cause when attending a protest, but a chant or protest song will be more easily remembered. Creating an original anthem, specifically for the protest, is an approach that builds unity while tapping into Rosenthal’s concept of music as a “database of linked emotions.” This concept suggests that music connects us to memories and emotions, making it a lasting symbol of a cause. By crafting a song that reflects the frustration or aspirations of students facing funding cuts, the protest can create an emotional anchor for participants. A custom anthem with meaningful lyrics becomes something students carry with them emotionally, resonating long after the protest ends. Sharing the song beforehand so students can learn it reinforces a sense of shared purpose and solidarity when sung together at the protest.

To conclude, acoustemology can be essential in organising and contributing to protests. The sonic experience can be powerful to the participants and people outside the movement and create a sense of belonging. Chanting in an open or closed space could make a significant difference in the effects of the protest. In addition, it can act as an inclusive and accessible tool, maximising participation opportunities, which is crucial within social movements and the achievement of change.

The proposed bill that protested by students and faculty affects the quality of education and has long-term consequences for every individual in the Netherlands. Innovation and creativity, which the same government wants to encourage, may be in danger. We urge you, students, colleagues and readers, to stand up for what you think is right and go against what you believe is unjust. To realise every voice matters and can bring change. To instrumentalise your voice and body to make sounds, create melodies and sing out loud to achieve positive social change. 

Music is an art form that reflects reality and affects the listener. But in music and acoustemology also resides power, and this power is in our hands, in our voice, and in our body. As more people muster their courage, more hands and bodies come together to stand together. The louder our presence, the more space we can reclaim.  So, the individual chooses to participate and contribute to the greater movement. The individual’s power is to unify and engage with others to guarantee success. Above all, every individual has the right to express and protect their voice; through music, we make that voice resonate.                                   

The budget cut protest discussed in this blogpost, which was to take place on November 14, 2024, was cancelled due to security concerns. An alternate protest was organised in The Hague on November 25th. Additionally, unions are currently discussing the possibility of a strike.

Sources:

Osgerby, Bill. “Subcultures, Popular Music and Social Change: Theories, Issues, and Debates.” In Subcultures, Popular Music and Social Change, edited by The Subcultures Network, 1-48.Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014.

Rosenthal, Rob and Richard Flacks. “An Introduction to the Music-Movement Link.” Playing for Change: Music and Musicians in the Service of Social Movements, 1-36. London: Routledge, 2011.

Rice, Tom. “Acoustemology.” In The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology 1, no. 1, 2018: 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea2000. 

Spencer-Espinosa, Christian. “Music and Social Change. Reflections on the Relationship between Sound and Society.” International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 53, no. 1, 2022: 57–76. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48689101.

Wong, Hei Ting. “The Acoustemology of Hong Kong in Protest: A Sonic Understanding of the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement.” Continuum, September, 2024: 1–18. doi:10.1080/10304312.2024.2401832.

Protests:

Student protest against high study costs in 2018: https://www.aob.nl/actueel/artikelen/driehonderd-demonstranten-tegen-hoge-studiekosten/

2024 protest against budget cuts in higher education: https://www.aob.nl/actueel/campagne/kabinetsloopthogeronderwijs/

How Can Popular Music Change the World?

In this post, Prof. Dr. Melanie Schiller introduces Culture Weekly’s special section on Popular Music and Social Change

Music is more than just entertainment—it’s a powerful way to reflect and shape society. From civil rights anthems to protest songs against wars, music has carried the struggles, dreams, and demands of generations. It can amplify the voices of marginalized communities and bring people together to fight for causes like gender equality and environmental justice.

Over the years, songs like “We Shall Overcome” became symbols of the Civil Rights Movement, while punk rock pushed back against authority in the 1970s. Today, hip-hop tackles issues like systemic racism, and artists use their platforms to address urgent challenges like climate change. Music connects people through shared emotions and inspires them to act, leaving a lasting impact on culture and society.

Understanding this connection means looking at not just the songs but also their historical and cultural backgrounds. By exploring the role of music in social movements, we see how melodies and lyrics become tools for resistance, unity, and hope—proof that the right song at the right time can drive real change.

As part of the course Popular Music and Social Change in the master’s program Creative Industries, students took this idea further by creating real-world projects linking popular music to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Each group chose an SDG—like reducing inequality or promoting education—and designed a musical intervention for their local community. Projects included social media campaigns about the environmental impact of fast fashion inspired by Taylor Swift fandom, interactive playlists to discourage smoking, and educational leaflets highlighting gender inequality in the music industry.

Through these creative efforts, the students explored a big question: How can music save the world? Their projects showed how music can inspire progress, spark conversation, and bring us closer to solving global challenges.

Vrouw Slaat Hond

Door Saskia Kroonenberg

Woensdagochtend. Treinreis richting Nijmegen. Bij Utrecht stappen ze op. Een vrouw van middelbare leeftijd, een jongen, een hond. “Geen aandacht geven!” maant ze de jongen. “Anders denkt hij dat hij belangrijk is.” Dat is hij blijkbaar niet. “Hou op! Niet zo vervelend zijn,” roept ze naar het arme dier dat er allemaal ook niks aan kan doen. Ongemakkelijk zit de hond tussen haar benen. Hij mag niet naar links kijken, niet naar rechts kijken, als hij opkijkt krijgt hij een mep, als hij omlaag kijkt een ruk aan zijn halsband. En maar schelden. Hij is ook maar een hond.

Het doet me denken aan een plaatje dat ik tijdens mijn studie psychologie tegenkwam, van een man die wordt uitgescholden door zijn werkgever. Thuisgekomen scheldt hij daarop zijn vrouw uit, die tegen het kind uitvalt, die tegen de kat begint te krijsen. Zo reageren we agressie op de volgende (onderliggende) trede in de sociale hiërarchie af. Wie onderaan staat krijgt de meeste klappen, in dit geval een (kat of) hond. En waar moet die het laten? Zou die vals geworden zijn en ook enkel weten hoe van zich af te bijten? Of zou die maar depressief in zijn mandje gaan liggen tot het ophoudt? En hoeveel agressie heeft die vrouw te verduren gehad? Van wie? Waar begint het en waar houdt het op?

Ik kijk naar buiten. Een drinkwaterbedrijf prijst sterke dijken en schoon water aan. O ja, ons drinkwater. Daar blijkt steeds meer PFAS en andere rommel in te zitten, lees ik in het nieuws. We drinken continu forever chemicals en andere troep, de hele dag, een creditcard per week, zeggen ze. Het is overal, in ons voedsel, in de lucht die we inademen, in onze ongeboren baby’s. We kunnen niet ontkomen. Dit ís niet houdbaar, dit kán niet goed gaan, het gaat niet zo. Ik sluit mijn ogen. De wereld voelt de laatste tijd zwaar, gebukt onder ontelbare vormen van geweld. Plastic, genocide, een vrouw, een hond. Ik voel me machteloos en huil naar het landschap. Ik weet niet waar het ophoudt.

Wat is mijn rol in dit alles? Wat doe ik?

Ik ben onderweg naar een werkgroep Academische Vaardigheden. Het vormt de basis van het academische werk van de studenten. Het is een belangrijk vak, waarin we nadenken over wat een tekst wetenschappelijk maakt, hoe we weten of een bron betrouwbaar is of niet, en hoe we een academische stijl kunnen toepassen in schrift en woord. Het is belangrijk, ja, maar het voelt tegelijkertijd nogal futiel. Wat maken punten en komma’s eigenlijk uit? Enkele of dubbele aanhalingstekens, schuingedrukt of Hoofdletter, punt, puntkomma, who cares? Ik vermoed dat mijn studenten wel grotere zorgen hebben dan de uitlijning van een word-document. Zoveel problemen in de wereld en wij zetten een punt op een i.  

En toch, het maakt uit. We lijken steeds meer in een cultuur te leven waarin we er maar gewoon op los mogen slaan als ons iets niet zint. Een grote bek en niet zo moeilijk doen, is het motto. Gewoon afreageren op de volgende in de hiërarchie. Lekker beuken op een hond. Misschien is nauwkeurigheid en accuraat werken met taal juist extra belangrijk, als geweldloos tegenwicht.

De vrouw stapt uit, en met haar de jongen en de hond. Ik kom aan in Nijmegen en bereid me voor op mijn les. Wat kan ik mijn studenten meegeven? Hoe beleven zij dit alles?

Wat ik hoop is dat we er op de universiteit in slagen om niet onze eigen frustraties en pijn op anderen uit te leven. Dat wij ze, zoals Freud het noemde, kunnen sublimeren; dus ze om kunnen zetten in kunst(-analyses), in het collectief organiseren van bijvoorbeeld een protest, en in andere vormen die bijdragen in plaats van afbreuk doen. Dat we agressie kunnen gebruiken voor iets anders, in ons eigen kleine kunnen, gewapend met vaardigheid in komma’s, punten, puntkomma’s, en i’s. Onze macht als geesteswetenschappers is beperkt, maar wat we doen, kunnen we goed doen, zo volledig mogelijk en volgens de academische standaarden die we in de loop der jaren hebben ontwikkeld. Omdat het zo hoort, zo hebben we het afgesproken, het is iets. Het geweld houdt niet op, maar wij zetten door.

Afbeelding: “Anger Transference” Richard Sargent 1954

The same moon shines on both of us

Anna P.H. Geurts

On my recent journey to Suriname, I have been thinking something that I have thought many times before, every time I am separated from a loved one. I see the moon and I am comforted by the fact that, however far away the other person, the same moon shines on both of us. And I am not the only one with this thought. As an historian of travel, I come across it again and again.

This is the thought: However many miles are between us, and however many hours of travel, however many obstacles – sometimes even the bend of the globe prevents us from seeing one another – we are nonetheless united by a single glance at the moon in the sky. We only need to look up and we see the same, very real, physical thing, at the same time.

I am not the first to think this. In my work, I come across many historical travellers with similar experiences. In 1877, German lady’s maid Auguste Schlüter travelled with her British employers to Ireland.

It is Sunday night, the moon sends her silvery light across the ocean, and carries me far away, home to my dear ones and to my dear Hawarden home, and to another spot on earth which I need not name, for Thou knowest all my thoughts.1

In Ireland, the moon reminded Schlüter of her loved ones in Germany and Britain, and of a mysterious unnamed person – her lover? So, what I am finding in my work about nineteenth-century Europeans is that, because the moon was visible from very different locations at same time, it made travellers feel connected to their (other) homes and their beloved. The moon took away the distance for a moment. Sometimes, this was followed immediately by a sense of even greater distance because of the contrast between the moon that seemed so close as to be touchable, and the loved one who was both out of sight and out of touch.

Now, as an historian, I am trained to focus on historical and cultural differences. I am asked to describe how people in the nineteenth century were different from ourselves, for example. But sometimes, I cannot help but espy similarities. Between myself and someone in the nineteenth
century. Or someone in a vastly different time and place.

This same moon hangs over Fu-chou.
Alone, she’ll lean out her window to watch it.2

So begins one of the famous melancholy poems by Tu Fu about travel, migration and separation. Tu Fu was a Tang-dynasty poet living thirteen centuries ago in what is now central China. In his poem, he describes two protagonists united by the same moon, but yet watching it alone.

It looks like this magical property of the moon to annihilate distances – and then to emphasise them – has been felt across the globe and across the millennia.

These examples are about the moon. I have found travel writing in which the sun accomplishes the same, particularly at special events such as a solar eclipse. And other travellers who talk about the stars. More down-to-earth phenomena also did the same for many: long rivers, for example, and the ocean.

Rivers and the ocean did this in a slightly different way from the moon. Not by enabling distant ones to see one relatively small point at the same time, but by offering the vastness and connectedness of one body of water to both individuals at the same time. The Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean connected one coast to a completely different one. And so, in the mid-nineteenth-century, the Russian writer Ivan Goncharov was on the island of Madeira in the Atlantic Ocean and seems to have felt connected to Russia through the Madeiran flowers he threw into the water and that might in theory reach Russia.3

Dare I propose that we are dealing with the same experience in every one of these instances?

And dare I propose also, therefore, that the moon brings together Tu Fu, Auguste Schlüter, and myself?

Immediately we have to admit that the story is not that neat. In Suriname, I sadly missed the opportunity of looking at the moon when it was full and when I knew certain people far away would also be looking at it. The rainy season covered up the moon. A week or so later, I saw a vivid bright waning moon. The same moon as was visible at the other side of the world, yes, but also a different one. While in Europe, my waning moon is balancing on its point. In Suriname, I see a calmly lying moon. In the same way, Tu Fu’s moon, Schlüter’s, and mine will have looked slightly different, because of our different positions on earth. What is more, our moons will have looked different because the moon has aged. The craters and seas on its surface may be a little worse for wear now compared to more than a thousand years ago, and there’s certainly been more human impact in recent years. My point is that the idea that we are looking at the same thing is perhaps a little bit of an illusion. But an influential and comforting illusion nonetheless.

In my recent book Travel and Space in Nineteenth-Century Europe, I discuss travellers’ attachments to home. In a related article, I outline different forms of what it means to feel distance.

More by Anna P.H. Geurts on Historian at large.

  1. Auguste Schlüter, A Lady’s Maid in Downing Street, ed. Mabel Duncan (London: Fisher Unwin, 1922), p. 17. ↩︎
  2. This translation is by Sam Hamill, in Endless River: Li Po and Tu Fu: A Friendship in Poetry (New York and Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1993). p. 37. ↩︎
  3. Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov, The Frigate Pallada, trans. Klaus Goetze (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987), p. 86. ↩︎

I thought we were all bird-watchers

By Aliisa Råmark

Recently, while attending a PhD writing retreat I connected with my peers about our hobbies outside of academia. I told my colleagues that in my free time I, of course, like to do bird watching. I was faced with curiosity and interest: “Oh really? Did you start it during Covid? It was a big trend back then.” Some friends also commented on it being a retired peoples’ hobby. I was utterly confused – doesn’t everyone casually birdwatch? What does it have to do with being old? Aren’t we all curious about identifying the species around us in the natural world? After receiving three bird books for my birthday, I am now in the acceptance phase of realising that maybe it’s a bit of a nerdy niche to birdwatch in your 20’s. But it’s one that I highly recommend. 

I did not start bird watching during the pandemic. In fact, I was indoctrinated from a young age by my parents. Growing up in South-Eastern Finland, the forest is your backyard, quite literally. Our father would play us bird sound cassettes and test our knowledge on nature walks. Not only birds, but we were expected to learn how to identify mushrooms, plants, berries, species of trees – everything in the natural world around us. It was part of being one with and respecting nature, and also to learn what was safe to gather for eating. 

However, I was only moderately enthusiastic about birds, until I moved abroad and realised how different the species were in other countries, even within Europe. The storks, grey herons and meerkoets that are so common in the Dutch landscapes were more of a rarity back home. And while most species are the same, they have different cycles. My internal clock was quite baffled hearing some birds singing in February in Nijmegen that mark the beginning of summer in Finland, or seeing the Egyptian geese with little goslings (yes, that’s geese babies) as early as April. Naturally, I reported all these Western European wonders back to my family in the arctic tundra. 

On a more cultural level, this pastime is relatively young in its current form. Interest in birds was much more destructive up until 100 years ago. In the 18th and 19th century it was still common to kill and collect birds, as well as other wildlife, for studying their biology or merely displaying them in curiosity cabinets.1 The development of binoculars as well as advocacy of ornithologists Edmund Selous impacted the hobby. In his diary entry from 1898, Selous had an awakening when he displayed remorse for the past killing of birds and urged people to put down their guns, and observe the birds in their natural habitat instead.2 Several decades later, birdwatching was boosted during the Second World War following the 1940 publication of Watching Birds by James Fishers. Surprisingly, (as much as I tried to steer away from my research topic of Heritage on Nazi Persecution) birdwatching was also practised on German Prisoner of War Camps: for instance British PoWs led by John Buxton started their own ornithological society, tracking and illustrating birds and distributing weekly bulletins on the camp’s ‘nature news’.3 Birdwatching offered a welcome distraction to the prisoners, perhaps releasing stress, and a connection to the outside world during their entrapment. 

Especially now, during the high intensity period of working on my PhD research, I find a lot of comfort in going out to Ooijpolder with my binoculars. It gives an incentive to go on a walk outdoors and quiets down my brain in the process. I enjoy pretending to be a 19th century ornithologist while studying the features of birds, trying to trace some elements of their dinosaur ancestors in their movements and sounds (if you have seen videos of the East-African shoebill, you know what I am talking about). I use Smart BirdID to note down the species I see and it gives me a cool sticker to my collection for each new bird – kind of like catching Pokémon, or creating a digital (and much more ethical) cabinet of curiosities. 

A sticker collection of some of my identified birds on BirdID 

Recently, I received news from my (bird-crazy) family that there is a rather rare osprey couple nesting on an island at our summer house. This was not a coincidence, but an effort of nature conservators who built a man-made nesting platform last autumn. Now our weekly phone calls go: “How are you doing? And how are the ospreys? Have their eggs hatched yet?” Things even took a dramatic turn resulting in a boat chase: as my stepfather saw a boat lingering around the nesting island he jumped onto his boat and chased down the unaware fishermen. I was not there, but I imagine it looked like something out of Baywatch. Once the fishers spotted him, they started drifting away with their boat, but he caught up and ordered them to turn off their motor. The frightened Russian fishers immediately offered their fishing licences. “I don’t care about your licences, but could you please let the ospreys nest in peace?” my stepfather pleaded. They took the hint and left for calmer waters. All was well again in the osprey paradise. 

The famous nesting ospreys at our summer house in Torsansalo, Finland.

Regardless, if sitting still for hours with a pair of binoculars is a bit too hardcore for you, you can also sit still on the comfort of your couch for 51 minutes while watching Dancing with the Birds on Netflix or watch a live-camera stream of a bird’s nest. I simply encourage you to take a moment to appreciate the wonderful range of species and nature around us that we often take for granted. 

A live camera capture of another osprey nesting in Saimaa lake region, Finland. (Source: WWF Suomi. Link: Sääksi – WWF:n Luontolive –https://wwf.fi/luontolive/saaksi/ WWF Suomi)

The header image for this piece is a hunting osprey. (Source: Vicki Jauron, Babylon and Beyond Photography / Getty Images)

Footnotes

  1. Birkhead, T. (2022). How Bird Collecting Evolved Into Bird Watching. Smithsonian Magazine. Available at: www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-bird-collecting-evolved-into-bird-watching-180980506/-Watching ↩︎
  2. Ibid. ↩︎
  3. Williams, H. (2012). The bird men of Warburg PoW camp. BBC News. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-20142709ews ; The Lady. (n.a.) The Bird Men PoWs. Available at: https://lady.co.uk/bird-men-pows ↩︎

Action Figurines and Grocery Lists: Creating a Transmedia Archive from the 1970s

By Eva Schellingerhout, student in Arts and Culture Studies

I got introduced to the cut-throat world of copyright and intellectual property at the tender age of eleven, watching a mini-documentary series with my father, called The Toys That Made Us. The series, in its attempt to follow the genealogy of famous childhood toys, exposed the bureaucratic slap-fight that occurred in the 70s and 80s over the merchandising rights to the latest Star Wars or He-Man. Corporate espionage, stolen trademarks, leaked product designs — it was a wild, dangerous world that endlessly intrigued me. This interest resurfaced when I was tasked with making my own transmedia story — I was going to create my own slap-fight, a company that would have competed with the likes of Kenner and Mattel at the heights of this ‘Toy War’. In the end, it became less a company, and more of a living, breathing person: David Kerr, a fictional toy product developer in the 70s, is contracted by a franchise to create a toy line, to accompany their upcoming film and collects his mementos of the work project in an archive box, where they sit, forgotten, for decades. The objects in the box are myriad: through advertisement blurbs, communication between the product designer and the client company, editor notes and sketches, the failings of a bled-dry franchise can be pieced together, alongside details about David’s personal life.

The archive brings two different branches of intermedial storytelling together: the ‘classical’ model of intermediality, Jenkin’s spatial transmedia “commercial franchise” and David Kerr’s personal life, which interacts with thing theory, archives and personal memory (Ryan 4).

Following Heersmink’s model, my archive functions as an ‘autopography’, a “network of evocative objects” which “provides stability and continuity for … autobiographical memory and narrative self” and through interacting with these objects “we construct … our personal identity” or the “narrative self” (1846; 1830). I.e. by interacting with the evocative objects in the storage box, we construct a narrative for the product developer. During the process, the viewer endows objects with autobiographical meaning, imagining the relation between human actor and object. To promote this ‘endowing’ I aged the objects, scrunched up and tore the complaint letter and left out specific information. On a larger scale, how the ‘viewer’ chooses to construct the narratives they find in the box, whether this is the first or second branch or a combination of both, can be seen as cryptographic narratives being at play. The cryptographic narrative was conceptualised for video games that obscure a secondary, parallel story in their text not necessary for game completion, which can only be accessed through dedicated effort (Paklons and Tratseart 168). Because my project is also interactive and deals with constructing narratives out of “disparate plot points”, in a co-creation process between author and viewer, but also never confirms whether the constructed narrative is ‘correct’, the cryptographic narrative is a useful framework (Paklons and Tratseart 170).

Superficially, the storage box forms two branches of theory, or rather, invites two different modes of interaction, as I suggested earlier: the viewer can either connect with the commercial franchise, in the form of adverts and film posters, or with David Kerr, via grocery lists and sticky notes. In practice, this is a crude simplification of the inner workings of the box. Naturally, I cannot dictate which ‘story’ the viewer will find interesting. In essence, all objects can become a part of an infinite number of theoretical cryptographic narratives, at the whims of the viewer, since there exists no hierarchy, or even true division, between plot elements. The theory, therefore, that I outlined above, can be applied to all objects: the two branches exist simultaneously, it all depends on how the viewer interacts with the objects. Does the viewer acknowledge the constructed nature of the archive box and therefore treat the ‘personal memories’ of the product developer as clues instead of real memories, taking a cryptographic approach? Does the viewer see the representations of the commercial franchise as an extension of the narrative self of the product designer? And so on and so forth.

For the actual contents of the box, I compared archival documents, like old Star Wars, Transformers, Marvel, He-Man and Mattel adverts, and how they constructed their brand identity across multiple media (see the first image below this paragraph). For the poster, I drew from 80s fantasy films, like The Dark Crystal, The Labyrinth and The NeverEnding Story (see images 2 and 3). Once I started researching 70s and 80s idiosyncrasies, it became near compulsory to check each detail. It began with googling 1980s travel brochures — at this point my itinerary was much more ambitious — and ended with frantically searching for the computer standard typeface for word processors in the 1970s. It’s Helvetica, for those curious (image 4). All of this was endlessly fascinating to me, but I’ll stop myself, before I start waxing poetry about film poster composition, gauche colouring and standard 70s printing practices. Essentially, the viewer should be able to deduce a vague time estimate based on typography, colour, texture, ‘style’, and composition (image 5).

The biggest problem was verisimilitude — breaking the contract, stepping past David Kerr and inserting emphasis where none would have existed, proclaiming “Yes! This is what you should be looking at!”. An over-reliance on the cryptographic elements would train the viewer to only engage with the objects as potential clues, which would limit their engagement to a very narrow range of emotional investment (images below this paragraph).

The toys, especially, formed a roadblock. I was not just trying to create appealing designs — they would have to fit 70s sensibilities, while also reflecting the restraints David Kerr would have battled with, like time, budget and investor desires (images below this paragraph). When I went back to theory, I was able to put my worries to rest. Wolf writes, “Adaptation into a physical playset [or toy] … involves not so much the adaptation of a narrative, but rather the settings, objects, vehicles, and characters from which a narrative can be interactively recreated by the user” (169). Flattening these characters was integral to making a toy, I realized, which is a great narrative tool for my project at large.

Then, it was just a matter of shackling myself to my desk until my eyes went red and David Kerr had substantially come to life.

There is so much more I could mention about this project. How I arranged the objects in the box, how I re-folded and un-folded paper, the intricacies of all the scrapped product designs and rejected archive objects, how the Namdor logo is made from five typefaces and took an entire day (see image) — but alas.

The Namdor Archive box now rests behind my curtain, buried by a few sunhats, pillows and a children’s microscope. It has ironically, become a truer archive than it had ever previously been — the papers have bent beneath their own weight and some knickknacks from 2024 have found their final resting place inside. The box has already begun to fade from memory. I wait for someone to rediscover Me and David Kerr inside.

Works Cited

Heersmink, Richard. “The Narrative Self, Distributed Memory, and Evocative Objects.” Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, vol. 175, no. 8, 2018, pp. 1829–49. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/45094122.

Hescox, Richard. “The Dark Crystal.” N.d., Pinterest, pin.it/5AYWXOEcU.

Paklons, Ana and An-Sofie Tratsaert. “The Cryptographic Narrative in Video Games: The Player as Detective.” Mediating Vulnerability: Comparative Approaches and Questions of Genre, edited by Anneleen Masschelein et al., UCL Press, 2021, pp. 168–84. JSTOR, doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1nnwhjt.14.

Ryan, Marie-Laure. “Transmedia Storytelling: Industry Buzzword or New Narrative Experience?” Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies, vol. 7, no. 2, 2015, pp. 1–19. JSTOR, doi.org/10.5250/storyworlds.7.2.0001.

Star Warsaction figurine comic book advertisement. 1977-1978?, Star Wars, www.starwars.com/empire-40th.

Wolf, Mark J. P. “Adapting the Death Star into LEGO: The Case of LEGO Set #10188.” Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling, edited by Sean Guynes and Dan Hassler-Forest, Amsterdam UP, 2018, pp. 169–86. JSTOR, doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt207g5dd.16.

Summer Recommendations from the ACW Team

With summer vacation having started for many and drawing closer for others, we thought it would be a good time to ask our staff in Arts and Culture Studies about the cultural things they’ll be enjoying this vacation. If you’re on the lookout for a book, a podcast, an album or an activity to spend your summertime on, look no further, because ACW has some suggestions for you!

Podcast: People I (Mostly) Admire by Steven D. Levitt Episode: Maya Shankar Is Changing People’s Behavior — and Her Own
I love listening to behavioral scientists and how their tiniest intervention can make a change in social systems. This episode talks about different ways in which behavioral economics was applied to increase voter’s turnout (among other fascinating examples) and how as people, embracing change can be daunting but is quite necessary. The entire podcast has a stellar guestlist, and its my cooking companion!
Apoorva Nanjangud, Postdoctoral researcher, MTC

Graphic Novel: My Favorite Thing is Monsters – Emil Ferris
This two-volume graphic novel is a mind-blowing read about a monster-like girl growing up in the vibrant and violent city life of Chicago in the 1960s. The book is one of those rare cases where excellent script writing and intricate graphic storytelling come together. It is also the debut of a 50+ American writer who has spent over two decades working on it.
Maarten de Pourcq

Novel: Julia – Sandra Newman
It takes great courage to re-write a classic novel like Orwell’s 1984, and Newman pulls it off. This retelling of the story from the perspective of Julia is fantastic, especially where dialogues from the original have been copied literally and still manage to twist the original plot.
Edwin van Meerkerk

Poems: Doe het toch maar – Babs Gons, and a novel: Jaguarman – Raoul de Jong
Bookworms who have turned their hobby into their job have a problem: as children, they tried to make each book last as long as possible, but now that reading is their work, the tower of texts that must be read seems to rise in direct proportion to their falling quality, which makes speedy reading both necessary and desired. Not with these two books. Their optimistic realism and real mystique made me want to stay with them.
Anna Geurts, teacher in cultural studies and historian of Dutch and Surinamese travel.

Novel: The Swan Book – Alexis Wright
I would like to recommend this energetic as well as poetic novel from 2013 by the Nobel Prize-worthy Indigenous Australian author Alexis Wright. It has just been translated to Dutch as Het boek van de zwaan, presumably because of its highly topical theme. It’s a sci-fi story about climate change and the injustices inflicted upon Aboriginal people (and how the two are related). I will be reading Praiseworthy, Wright’s latest novel, this summer myself. Or I will try, as it’s 800 pages long! The Swan Book is easier to read on the train to the beach or in your tent in the woods. I wouldn’t exactly call it light reading, but it’s a great reminder of the power of literature and that’s always welcome – in any location.
Dennis Kersten, Lecturer Arts and Culture Studies/ Algemene Cultuurwetenschappen

The Emerald Podcast
For the past few years, I’ve been diving deep into ancient myths, and last year I stumbled upon a podcast that has completely captivated me since. The Emerald podcast is a mesmerising blend of myth, story, music, and imagination, creating an immersive experience (best described as a “sonic journey”) that hooked me from the first episode. This podcast reminds us of the importance of reviving the imaginative and poetic essence of human experience, celebrated by cultures for thousands of years, to address today’s unprecedented challenges.
Britt Broekhaus, project coordinator

Film: Petite Maman, a 2021 French fantasy drama, written and directed by Céline Sciamma
Why I would recommend it: always wished you could have met your parents when they were much younger – or even the same age as you? The film follows a young girl who experiences just that. She copes with the death of her maternal grandmother by bonding with her mother – who she meets in the woods, and who is eight years old, just like she is. It does not take long before she quietly realizes that this stranger is actually her mother in a much younger version. The film is beautifully shot, lovely to look at, thought-provoking, psychologically well constructed and (somehow) strangely credible. It stayed with me for weeks after I saw it. Petite Maman is available on Pathé Thuis.
Helleke van den Braber

Novel: The Book of Love – Kelly Link
I recommend The Book of Love because it is captivatingly strange. I spent the first half of the book having my expectations defied and wondering where on earth the plot was going, and the second half deeply impressed with the way all these widely diverging threads of plot were woven into a coherent whole. This is a book for people who enjoy magical realism, interpersonal drama, and carefully wrought prose.
Julia Neugarten, PhD candidate

Album: ‘The Shape of Fluidity’ – DOOL
This album was put into the world in April 2024 and since then I have been loving it, as it touched something in me. As the artists themselves say: “The theme of the album pitches the concept of identity against the backdrop of a world in constant flux, and deals with change. […] We have to be as fluid as water to navigate ourselves through this ocean of possibilities and uncertainties – and make peace with chaos and impermanence.”
Demi Storm, PhD candidate

TV Program: Rutger en de Nationalisten (2023)
In case your summer is too relaxing, and you are afraid of getting too optimistic about the future, I’d recommend the NPO series Rutger en de Nationalisten (2023). In this series, Rutger Castricum (PowNed) follows a number of nationalists of different flavours in their daily lives and work – from anti-vaxx conspiracist, farmer, politician, or local neighbourhood watch to student association and Friesian car mechanic. The series gives a good and disconcerting insight into a world that might seem far away, but that surrounds us every day. Happy watching!
Anonymous Contributor

Novella: Open Water – Caleb Azumah Nelson
Both intimate and brutal, Open Water is a beautifully written novella that has made a great impact on me despite its short length. At first glance, it is mostly a love story between a photographer and dancer in London, but unfolds into careful examinations of Black artistry, racial injustice, police brutality and mental health. I love the lyrical prose and musical influence, and have re-read many passages since my first read; it’s the perfect slow read for summer!
Joy Koopman, PhD candidate

TV Program: B&B Vol Liefde
Ja kijk, ik kan nu heel cultureel verantwoord gaan doen, maar we willen deze zomer gewoon allemaal B&B Vol Liefde kijken toch? De afgelopen 3 zomers was dit dé zomerbesteding. Ik was oprecht verdrietig op vakantie omdat ik toen 10 dagen moest missen. Het is super wholesome hoe al die mensen met elkaar omgaan, er zijn vaak mooie natuurbeelden, er komen iconische memes uit en de afleveringen zijn ook lekker lang (ongeveer een uur en dat dan 5x per week) dus dat is perfect. Lekker met je hoofd voor de ventilator als het snikheet is, wijntje erbij.
Maaike van Leendert, lecturer

Exhibition: Spot On – Hairytales in museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf
This exhibition is just a small room in a large museum, but it showcases a particularly interesting subject. The way that hair is styled tells us something about social status and belonging to societal groups. Cuts and hairdos expose notions of gender and body image of their time. They reflect norms and are an expression of political protest and resistance. “Hairytales” opens up perspectives on this intimate, symbolic material.
Jeanine Belger, Teacher in Residence

Novel: Zeno’s Conscience by Italo Svevo
At the moment I am (re)reading this classic and I’m just smiling and crying and applauding all the time. Originally published in Italy in 1923 (as La coscienza di Zeno), this novel hasn’t lost anything of its power and ingenuity. Memorable protagonist, a continuous embarassing self-analysis. Every sentence is to be savoured.
Natascha Veldhorst

Concert on September 26/27: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds “The Wild God Tour” in Amsterdam’s Ziggo Dome.
The 26th is already sold out but there are still tickets available for the 27th. Cave’s approach to culture and literature has been an inspiration to me as a student and later as a teacher. Rarely do I come across a band or a song where music and lyrics so powerfully transform one another, yielding layers of meaning that are as much scary as they are uplifting, often bordering on the sublime. I always enjoy coming back to his art, which is why recommend this upcoming concert.
Laszlo Muntean, assistant professor of visual culture and some other stuff

Novel: The Wall (Die Wand) – Marlen Haushofer (1963)
My recommendation is one of my favorite novels of all time: The Wall by Austrian writer Marlen Haushofer. This is an ecofeminist novel about a woman who wakes up in a cabin in the woods to realize she is separated from the rest of the world by a transparent wall. The forest and a few animals are her only companions, creating difficult conditions for survival, but also stimulating her to document her daily activities and thoughts about being the only human among nonhumans. The world the book creates is, despite its dystopian elements, a wonderful place to immerse oneself in during a summer break. After reading, you can also enjoy the film adaption (Pösler, 2012), but I would recommend you to first imagine the world this moving book creates by yourself.
Rianne Riemens, PhD candidate

The header image for this blogpost was created by Courtney McGough and shared on Flickr under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license.

Meditatie over mode

Door Anneke Smelik

Een simpel T-shirt

Ik las ooit in een boek van de boeddhistische leraar en monnik Thich Nhat Hanh dat de bladzijde die ik aan het lezen was een wolk bevatte. Niet alleen de wolk, of de regen, zit in die bladzijde, maar ook de zon. Want, zegt hij, de zon en de regen waren nodig om de boom te laten groeien waar het papier van gemaakt is: de aarde waar de boom in wortelt; het regenwater en de zon voor voedsel en groei; en de zuurstof die de bladeren in de atmosfeer brengen. De vier elementen, aarde, water, lucht en vuur, bevinden zich in dat simpele velletje papier.

We kunnen dit voorbeeld van Thich Nhat Han naar de wereld van de mode vertalen, aan de hand van een simpel wit T-shirt van katoen dat we allemaal wel in de kast hebben liggen. In het textiel van het T-shirt zitten de zon, het water, de lucht en de aarde om de katoenplant te laten groeien. Maar dat niet alleen. In dat T-shirt zit ook het zweet van de arbeiders die de katoen plukken en spinnen, de stof weven of breien, en verven, van de naaisters die het T-shirt in elkaar zetten, en de werkers die het eindproduct inpakken en naar de andere kant van de wereld transporteren, om het hier te verkopen, voor een té lage prijs.

In dat simpele kledingstuk, dat basic T-shirt, zit de hele wereld verweven; elke draad verbindt de drager met de vier elementen, maar ook met mensen en objecten over de hele wereld.

Fast fashion

Duurzaamheid betekent iets dat duurt; iets dat kan voortduren in de toekomst. En fast fashion is in zijn aard niet duurzaam: mode is per definitie aan verandering onderhevig en fast fashion heeft die cyclus van produceren, kopen, gebruiken, en weggooien tot in het absurde versneld. Wij lijden aan geheugenverlies waar het textiel betreft. We weten niet meer welke enorme inspanningen de mensheid heeft gestoken in de uitvindingen om garen en textiel te maken van planten (linnen, katoen), dierenvacht (wol) of insecten (zijde). Zie het als geheugenverlies: stof, textiel, was in alle opzichten tot het midden van de vorige eeuw bijzonder waardevol; het had zowel emotionele, functionele, als economische waarde. Als we die waarde niet meer herkennen in de ‘fast fashion’ van vandaag, dan wordt kleding waardeloos en kunnen we het na ampel gebruik achteloos weggooien.

Willen we voorkomen dat kleding een wegwerpartikel blijft, dan moeten we de materiële cultuur van textiel serieus te nemen. Alleen dan kunnen we een duurzame toekomst voor mode realiseren. Als de mens ge-de-centreerd en ont-troond wordt, en als we ons ervan bewust worden dat de menselijke en niet-menselijke wereld wederzijds afhankelijk zijn, dat materie van vitaal belang is, dan begrijpen we dat duurzaamheid geen luxe is, maar onze enige manier om te overleven.

Zolang het kapitalistische systeem zich in de eerste plaats richt op winst en groei, zonder het probleem van overproductie en overconsumptie aan te pakken, en nog steeds inspeelt op de huidige wegwerp-mentaliteit, raken we niet op weg naar duurzaamheid in de mode-industrie. Om die mentaliteit van ‘snel kopen en weggooien’ tegen te gaan, is het dringend noodzakelijk om een samenleving te ontwikkelen waarin materialen ertoe doen. We mogen dan in een materialistische samenleving leven, maar we moeten juist dat materialistische niveau nog serieuzer nemen.

Als we van het posthumanisme hebben geleerd dat er geen duidelijke grens is tussen het menselijke en het niet-menselijke, het bezielde en het onbezielde, en natuur en cultuur; dan volgt daaruit dat we beter zinvolle allianties kunnen creëren. Als we van het nieuw-materialisme hebben geleerd dat de niet-menselijke wereld, dieren of voorwerpen zoals een jurk of spijkerbroek, rijk en complex zijn, dan moeten we de niet-menselijke wereld niet alleen serieus nemen, maar er een alliantie mee vormen.

Mindfulness

Vanuit het perspectief van duurzaamheid zouden we ons anders moeten verhouden tot de niet-menselijke wereld: met verwondering, liefde, zorg en verantwoordelijkheid. In haar boek Staying with the Trouble noemt Donna Haraway die houding: response-ability. Ook in het Nederlands werkt dat: om een antwoord te vinden op de problemen van vandaag moeten we ver-antwoord-elijkheid nemen.

Als we begrijpen dat we allemaal draden in dat weefsel vormen, dan begrijpen we ook dat we wederzijds afhankelijk zijn, en dus verantwoordelijk zijn. En we zijn niet alleen verantwoordelijk voor elkaar, dat spreekt – hopelijk – voor zich, maar juist ook voor de aarde, voor het water, voor de lucht, voor de dingen, en voor de kleding in onze klerenkast. In deze houding herken ik het boeddhistische begrip mindfulness: met liefdevolle aandacht naar de mensen en de dingen kijken en ervoor zorgdragen.

Dat betekent dat we onze gewoonten moeten veranderen. Als onze gewoonten niet veranderen, bijvoorbeeld van winkelen, kopen, verspillen, kunnen we geen verandering bewerkstelligen. Als we een transformatie willen bereiken die zo ver reikt als een duurzame toekomst, dan moeten we veranderen op het niveau van gewoonten – en dat kan door mindful te zijn.

Mindfulness wordt in het westen nog wel ’ns begrepen als een koele afstandelijke blik van buiten, maar het betekent juist betrokken en liefdevolle aandacht. Mindfulness houdt in dat we ons rekening geven dat de kleding die we dragen, draden spint met de materiële wereld om ons heen. Het houdt in dat we beseffen dat de katoenen draden van het witte T-shirt ons verweven met de aarde die ons grondt, met de stroom van het water, met het vuur dat ons opwarmt, en de lucht die we ademen. Een mindful houding betekent ook dat we niet het zware werk van de arbeiders vergeten die nodig was om de kleding te produceren. Zo kunnen we ons gedrag veranderen door kleding langer te dragen, te ruilen, huren, recyclen, zelf te maken … en vooral: minder te kopen.

Juist in het besef van de wederzijdse afhankelijkheid in het weefsel dat we met elkaar en met de dingen vormen, kunnen we onze identiteit een andere richting opduwen en nieuwe draden knopen. Met die liefdevolle aandacht kunnen we onze gewoonten veranderen.

Laten we de kleren in onze kledingkast koesteren!

Dit is een deel van de tekst die Anneke Smelik uitsprak op 8 juni 2023 bij haar afscheid als hoogleraar ‘Visuele Cultuur’ aan de Radboud Universiteit in Nijmegen. De tekst is in zijn geheel te lezen als essay in De Groene Amsterdammer, 2 augustus 2023.

The Consolation of Literature: From To the Lighthouse to a Virginia Woolf-Inspired Memoir

By Dennis Kersten

When writing about Dante, T.S. Eliot once remarked that “genuine poetry is communicated before it is understood”. You probably have fridge magnets of it now, and while I don’t like Eliot’s “genuine”, I was reminded of his line when I was blown away by “Alalgura VI” (1992), a painting by Australian artist Emily Kame Kngwarreye at the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden. It made total sense to me, instantly, but it didn’t give me any clue as to why it had such an impact. It was a kind of love-at-first-sight experience: the one thing that feels so right in a world gone crazy. Surely, Eliot’s statement is applicable to art in general, painting included. Though I sometimes wonder if art can communicate in ways that make understanding wholly irrelevant. Like love, indeed.

How odd when similar things happen with art works I’ve seen, heard or read many times before. Like Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden album when I bought it on vinyl for the first time. But also Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, a novel I thought I knew well enough. Both hit me again recently, which made me feel quite emotional, too. Who knows, maybe I’m just going through a midlife crisis. (Ah, good. If I’m halfway through, I will apparently live to be 92.)

I read Woolf again to be able to better understand a book I was planning on reviewing before lockdown struck: Katherine Smyth’s All the Lives We Ever Lived: Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf (2019), a memoir I was going to read alongside David James’s academic study of literary consolation, Discrepant Solace (2019). Smyth’s debut book tells the story of her life so far, from her Rhode Island childhood to the aftermath of the death of her alcoholic father. One of its key themes is the question how a favourite novel – To the Lighthouse – may provide the language for the often traumatic experiences Smyth describes, especially in relation to her father’s deterioration and later illness. Reflections on consolation establish a binding thread in a generically complex book, which calls for a closer look at Smyth’s quest for the consolation of literature with the help of David James’s state-of-the-art research.   

Back to The Lighthouse

Set in the early-twentieth century, Woolf’s fifth novel tells the story of how the Ramsay family spend their holidays on the Isle of Skye, in the company of friends like painter Lily Briscoe and the young couple Paul Rayley and Minta Doyle. It begins with a scene in which Mr Ramsay berates his wife for promising James, their youngest son, a trip to the nearby lighthouse when the weather is making a turn for the worse. The Ramsays entertain their guests with dinner parties, among other things, but there are tensions between Mr and Mrs R. as well as between their friends. In the middle part of the novel, Mrs Ramsay and two of her eight children die, one as a casualty of the First World War. The concluding part, which takes place ten years after the first, sees the family reunite on Skye. James Ramsay gets to sail to the nearby lighthouse at last and Lily completes the painting she started in the novel’s early chapters.

While preparing my review of All the Lives We Ever Lived I was thinking if Smyth’s attraction to To the Lighthouse could be explained by its metafictionality, which might be of special interest to life-writers. From its opening pages onwards, the novel probes the nature of art itself – for example, in passages in which characters like Lily think about the capacity of painting to give access to “wisdom”, “knowledge”, “truth”, or a one-ness with others that is all communication-before-understanding. Lily is fascinated by Mrs Ramsay and how she appears to be at peace with her life despite a visibly tense marriage, the more so while many other people present wrestle with confinement in one way or another (Charles Tansley, an admirer of Mr Ramsay, tells her that women can’t paint). She hopes to capture in art what she “sees”, as she refers to it, while observing Mrs Ramsay, her family and their visitors: the “essence” of other human beings and their relations with each other.

Lily’s ruminations on painting resemble those of an author like Woolf herself. And it’s hard to escape the supposition that if she had been a writer of fiction she would have produced a book like To the Lighthouse, with its shifting perspectives and innovative use of focalization. In the novel, the Ramsays’ holiday home comes to life especially in chapters that describe how Mrs Ramsay experiences it inwardly (as in chapter 5 of “The Window”, the first part of the novel). How different this is in sections focalized around her husband’s consciousness: he is considering the Questions of Life, but he doesn’t really take notice of his wife, his children or much of the drama in which they’re all involved. Ironically, Mr Ramsay may be a celebrated “metaphysician” among his student-disciples, but he does not really think that deeply – unless he’s reflecting on Shakespeare, Thomas Carlyle or his own reputation. He doesn’t “see”, because he doesn’t feel, Lily would say. She understands that he’s “afraid to own his feelings” (50-1) for fear of being seen for what he probably is, a mediocre academic who hasn’t fulfilled the promise of his early career.

As an artist, Lily wishes she could be one with her subjects like you would if you loved them – thus, beyond the type of philosophizing that distracts Mr Ramsay from seeing life properly. She asks herself if “loving, as people called it, [could] make her and Mrs Ramsay one? for it was not knowledge but unity she desired, not inscriptions on tablets, nothing that could be written in any language known to men but intimacy itself, which is knowledge, she had thought, leaning her head against Mrs Ramsay’s knee” (57). She wonders if she’s in love with Mrs R. and if artistic vision could be as sharp as love, going straight to the essence of others without having to consult a Great Man or two first.

I can imagine why Smyth would be fascinated with To the Lighthouse. Of all of Woolf’s novels, it may also be my own favourite (ask me again tomorrow, however, and I might choose Orlando – no, Jacob’s Room). But I can also understand why a novel that thematizes the above would be the perfect main intertext of a solace-seeking memoir that inevitably struggles to find form for Smyth’s subject matter.

Discrepant Solace

Discrepant Solace (2019) by David James, an authority in the fields of the legacy of literary Modernism and “uplit”, presents the first in-depth analysis of “a peculiarly prevalent phenomenon for contemporary writing” (35): the way in which consolation “as an affective state [is] staged by the formal components of literary works themselves” (7). James is interested in how the forms of present-day novels and memoirs about painful life experiences force readers to examine solace without offering easy escape routes from those experiences through the aestheticizing of trauma. James argues that, in early-twenty-first-century fiction and life-writing, solace is actually “discrepant” and undeserving of the “hazy reputation” of consolation in art in general (9). The way in which “discrepant solace brings together narratives that twin the aesthetic conundrum surrounding how writing consoles with the ethical one of whether consolation is desirable at all” (7) is even more of an issue in memoir, James contends (7 and 10) – something to bear in mind while scrutinizing Smyth’s book. Historicizing the phenomenon in literature, he points to the “modernist genesis” of discrepant solace (51) and suggests that it’s tempting “to see the heightened reflexivity of [its] articulation as a recent strategy belonging to texts that are working through postmodernism’s numerous afterlives” (24). But more about that later…

To the Lighthouse is actually one of the first literary texts James discusses. His analysis of discrepant solace in Woolf prefaces a close reading of Ian McEwan’s more recent novel Atonement (2001), an example of a contemporary fiction processing the legacy of Modernism. He argues that the celebration of twentieth-century literary Modernism’s “criticality” (i.e. its power to unsettle and subvert) is rooted in criticism’s traditionally hostile view of literature as a medium of consolation. Arguments along these lines by, to name but a few, Herbert Marcuse, Neil Lazarus and Tyrus Miller, “rehearse the assumption that as soon as literature consoles it immediately compromises its own capacity for critique” (45). James warns against the type of binary thinking that sees “disconsolation” as “the only alternative to consolation” (45) and offers his detailed reading of To the Lighthouse as evidence of how Woolf “doesn’t treat consolation uncritically” (46). “For what we witness in To the Lighthouse”, he says, “is neither the outright refutation of solace with a force that ‘engenders disconsolation,’ in Lazarus’s phrase, nor a plea to transcend history’s harm through ‘the admirable design of words,’ to recall Miller’s” (47).

James writes that in Woolf’s novel style does not smooth over trauma and pain (for example, by providing comfort in the shape of a false sense of wholeness), but its restless syntax and rhythm do not combine to simply deny its readers the easy comfort of an aesthetically pleasing form either. As he shows, modernist writing like or inspired by Woolf’s rather forces its readers to reflect on the very nature of consolation as well as on the question how art may offer solace in the first place:

“the recognition (…) of consolation’s unsustainability is something [Woolf’s and McEwan’s] fictions transport in compelling forms that refuse to deliver the redemptions of pristine design. Only by this refusal, these novelists suggest, can literature articulate what [Philip] Tomlinson termed the ‘better-founded solace’ that comes (…) ‘from looking squarely at the worst’” (56).  

The Novel and the Memoir

The paratexts of Smyth’s All the Lives We Ever Lived already signal the memoir’s reliance on earlier books: its main title is a phrase from a poem cited by Mr Ramsay in To the Lighthouse, while its dustjacket clearly references Vanessa Bell’s designs for the first editions of her sister’s novels and other writing. In addition, immediately after the dedication to her mother, Smyth includes a quote from Woolf’s novel as motto. Tellingly, it is a passage (from chapter 7, in the third part of the novel) in which Lily sees Mrs Ramsay disappear from view: “It was strange how clearly she saw her, stepping with her usual quickness across fields among whose folds, purplish and soft, among whose flowers, hyacinths or lilies, she vanished”.

In many other places, too, To the Lighthouse supplies Smyth with the language and form she needs to be able to write about her childhood and parents. In some cases, she literally lets Woolf’s characters speak for her, especially where she’s interpreting the meaning of things that happened to her in the past. Interestingly, Smyth quite often quotes Lily in these instances:

My father took the Laser [a sailing boat] on my return. He always left the basin, and sometimes I would stand on the float, still in my life jacket, watching the white sail grow fainter and fainter (“So much depends,” thinks Lily, watching from the lawn as the dull speck that is the Ramsay’s sailboat recedes into the bay, “upon distance”; so much depends upon “whether people are near us of far from us.”). (81)

Even as a child I had looked at this picture with interest, feeling a kind of condescending sorrow for the old man from my grandmother’s other life who had had the bad luck to die. (“Oh, the dead!” thinks Lily, “one pitied them, one brushed aside, one had even a little contempt for them.”). (116)

Woolf’s novel also hands Smyth frames with which to order her own experiences – most notably when it comes to her parents’ relationship. However, she does not schematically project the story of the Ramsays onto her own family’s situation. She reflects on the similarities between her parents’ marriage and that of the Ramsays, but she makes comparisons with that of Paul and Minta in other places as well. Mrs Ramsay features heavily in sections about Smyth’s relationship with her own mother, but when her father dies of cancer, he suddenly becomes the Mrs Ramsay of Smyth’s book. In this respect, All the Lives We Ever Lived is a challenging read: by continuously drawing attention to its form (including the ways in which it makes use of its intertextual relation with Woolf), the memoir highlights the complexity of seeking solace in literary writing. 

Halfway through her book (in chapter 18), Smyth recognizes that her parents’ marriage can only be done justice in fiction, or in life-writing that takes a fictional text as its main frame of reference. As Smyth suggests but never explicitly states, the solace of fiction is not in the answers it offers to life’s biggest questions, but in the many perspectives on those it presents. Because fiction is inconclusive by nature, it can only ever be indirectly applicable to readers’ lives. Indeed, as All the Lives We Ever Lived so compellingly shows, a novel’s “indirection” allows readers to compare their own situations with those of fictional characters without offering definitive conclusions.

The same can be said for life-writing so inextricably linked with fiction, especially if it is fiction by Woolf, whose work, Smyth observes, “is characterized by inconclusiveness” (120). Reading Woolf helps Smyth understand that grief need not be what it is popularly understood to feel or look like (255). But the realization that solace may be “discrepant” might actually be consoling in itself:

“[T]here are… readers for whom Woolf’s nuanced portrayal of loss – which acknowledges the frustration, inconstancy, and even tedium of grief in addition to its horror – provides not just a welcome challenge to the prevailing wisdom but also a vital consolation” (255).

New Registers of Feeling and Thinking

What would David James make of All the Lives We Ever Lived, which, of course, documents another reader’s search for consolation in To the Lighthouse – precisely the kind of text he would have studied if he had focused on reader responses to discrepant solace in Woolfian modernist fiction? Its form might further complicate matters: combining autobiography, biography and literary criticism, Smyth’s memoir raises the question whose pain and redemption we’re talking about when discussing the work of consolation in literature. Is it the author’s, as is most likely in the case of a memoir (which is not to say, of course, that the fiction of To the Lighthouse may not be a processing Virginia Woolf’s own feelings of loss and mourning)? Or is it a fictional character’s, like Lily Briscoe trying to cope with the death of Mrs Ramsay in To the Lighthouse? What about readers who seek solace personally and perhaps identify with the suffering of the subjects of life-writing and fiction? A book about the solace of fiction like Smyth’s might console yet other readers. As Radhika Jones writes in her New York Times review of All the Lives We Ever Lived: “I suspect [Smyth’s] book could itself become solace for people navigating their way through the complexities of grief for their fallen idols”.

James’s book is an important publication, not only in the sense that he spends ample time on the intricate interplay of all of these levels of consolation, or because he connects at least three areas of research in refreshingly new ways: contemporary fiction, life-writing and the “post-postmodern”. He also convincingly shows how present-day literature’s discrepant solace finds a precedent in early-twentieth-century Modernism, thus enlarging our understanding of the extent to which contemporary, post-postmodern culture can be seen to work through the legacies of earlier aesthetic regimes and sensibilities. In fact, James’s perceptive analysis of contemporary literature’s exploration of misunderstood or less celebrated aspects of Modernism bears great significance for the discussion of what academics have labelled “Metamodernism”, the structure of feeling that is said to have replaced Postmodernism as a cultural dominant.

Like scholars working in that field, he acknowledges the emergence of new “registers of feeling” that “at once disobey the commodifying, banalizing logic of postmodern pastiche and contravene the equally flattening, bureaucratized logic of neoliberal rationality” (224). However, he refrains from using the “Metamodernism” term: “If the postmodern model no longer fits certain limbs of affective experience in literature now, then the understandable appetite for replacement labels seems less important than recognizing that writers’ unexpected kinships possess aesthetic, philosophical, and political valences that exceed compartmentalization” (224). Future research will shed more light on how the particular needs and concerns of early-twenty-first-century authors like Smyth inform their reinterpretations of twentieth-century Modernism and, so, give shape to post-millennial art and culture.

The Consolation of Inconclusiveness

All the Lives We Ever Lived is, then, as much a book about the consolation of literature as an example of a text that offers a version of solace itself. It’s certainly not an easy read, let alone a book that dispels trauma by turning a troubling life narrative into a perfectly formed, redemptive story. Indeed, as its subtitle indicates, it’s about Katherine Smyth seeking instead of finding solace. But precisely as a result, her memoir is an unforgettable reminder of the power of literature as a medium of discrepant solace. Reading it with David James’s main arguments in mind, I felt compelled to ask myself how books console me personally – a question that, post-lockdown, seems to increasingly occupy others as well (see, for example, Michael Ignatieff’s On Consolation: Finding Solace in Dark Times (2021), but also Laura de Jong’s 2023 series of author interviews about literary consolation for de Volkskrant newspaper).

Of course, I’m a different To the Lighthouse reader than both Smyth and James, but it could very well be that the new impression the novel’s made on me is, in fact, related to the solace issue that James so insightfully analyzes. I certainly find hope in the potential of both fiction and life-writing to continuously generate alternative meanings and acquire new relevance to readers already familiar with certain texts. Their lack of wholeness, closure or soothing answers to unsettling questions holds a promise (i.e. of future meaning and relevance), which also positively affects my experience of reality. Because even when its promise may never be fulfilled, literature encourages me to imagine real life as something that can and always will evolve. Thanks to great books like Woolf’s, I now see the world around me as inconclusive in the most optimistic sense of the word. And after reading Smyth and James, I’d like to think that if fiction has any responsibility towards reality, it’s not to faithfully represent what already is, but to show what could also be. Literature will always keep communicating, and there is real solace in that kind of generosity. Or that’s what I think. And if I’m wrong, I have at least another 46 years to find out.

Works Cited

James, David. Discrepant Solace: Contemporary Literature and the Work of Consolation. Oxford UP, 2019.

Jones, Radhika. “A Grieving Woman’s Eloquent Homage to Virginia Woolf.” The New York Times, 11 Feb. 2019. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/11/books/review/katharine-smyth-all-lives-we-ever-lived.html.

Smyth, Katherine. All the Lives We Ever Lived: Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf. Atlantic Books, 2019.

Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse. Vintage Classics, 2016.